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So you have finally planned to invade the magical world of Internet. All captions ready, all information gathered, all details penned down. What next?

Your next important step is finding the Web Host for your site, The Right One..

A web host is a service provider that places your web site on a computer that is connected to Internet. This then gives people who surf Internet a way to access your website.

Finding the best host for your company’s Web site is one of the most important steps when taking your business online. Not only will your host be responsible for placing your company’s site on the Internet; it will also be responsible for keeping it there and being available to potential customers.

Now, let us take a look at the steps to be followed when choosing the right web host:

1. Create an online plan for your site. What you are going to sell, number of items, methods of payment and the features of your site. Then determine the possibilities for your site’s expansion over the next six months, the next year and the next five years. Look into these factors before short-listing your probable host.

Disk Space/Storage refers to the amount of space given by a web-hosting plan for your web site’s pages, images, and any additional files. Take this into consideration when determining the total number of files you will be using for your website and their sizes. If you are planning on creating a website with a lot of video or audio files, you will need a lot of disk space. Check whether your host can meet this requirement.

Programming Languages such as ASP, PHP, Perl/CGI, JSP and ColdFusion are used to create a lot of popular scripts (software) to help your website function. Make sure your web host supports the language used by you. Also, if you are planning on selling services or products from your website, make sure the web hosting plan you choose offers some type of ecommerce solution.

2. Now that you have checked out all your requirements, pick your top five responses. Surprisingly, many of the hosts you submit a request for a proposal to won’t respond by your set deadline. Ignore them and look at the responses you receive and pick the five best.

3. Ask for references. Take your short list of hosts and ask them for the names of some of their clients — then pick up the phone and see what the host’s clients have to say. Be sure to inquire how good the host is at making the site available online.

4. Test their customer service. Pick up the phone and call customer support at 2 a.m. Drop customer support an e-mail to see how fast they respond to you. Do what it takes to feel comfortable with your service provider before you enter into any type of business relationship.

Choosing the right Web host is easier if you approach it the way you would approach any other major purchase for your business. It can mean the difference between success and failure for your online venture.

Online degree programs have growth rapidly in conjunction with the high demand of online education. Today, getting a university degree online has become a practical reality for people who cannot spare the time and commitment just to go back to regular university for earning a degree. You may find it confusing and hard to make a decision on so many online degree program choices. Although it is a hard decision, making the right choice that will suit your schedule, your learning style as well as your education goal is of prime importance.

Depending on your specific needs and goals, here are 4 tips to help your find an online university that best suit your needs:

1. Know your education goals

Different people have different needs for getting an online education. Some people enrolled into an online degree program just to sharpen their knowledge in certain area whereas others may hope to make a career switch by earning a degree in the area they are interested in.

Hence, you need to know what you are your purpose of getting an online education. Before you begin considering your options on various online degree programs, do some self assessment on what kind of education you are looking for, how much time and effort you plan to invest and whether it is personal fulfillment or career advancement that you aim to achieve through the course.

2. Do research on your options

Most online universities provide free information on their online degree programs and many do provide online chat session with their academic advisors so that you can ask any related questions and getting the necessary information needed before you make up your mind. Take your time to gather as much information as you can from various online universities that offer the education program that within your education scope. Ask the academic advisors for further clarification for any doubts; make sure you have a clear idea of the program being offered before you invest your hard earned money and time into any one of them.

3. Beware of online degree scams

Onlinde degree scams or mostly know as diploma mill is a college or university that operates primarily to make money; such schools are not properly accredited and issue degrees without ensuring an education occurs. You need to be wary of these degree mills when doing your searches for the right course; make sure your are enrolled with online university that offers legitimate courses with proper accreditation. Fake degrees and credentials are plentiful and you will only be wasting your time, effort and money if you go with one of them.

4. Look for online degree program with recognized accreditation

Accreditation of the online university that you enroll in is vitally importance. Accreditation provides assurance that the program in which you are enrolled is engaged in continuous review and improvement of its quality and it meets nationally endorsed standards in the profession, and that it is accountable for achieving what it sets out to do.

If the reason you are pursuing further education is to advance your career, the degree you will be earning needs to be recognized by your employers or prospective employers. A degree from an accredited online university is one of the important consideration factors by many employers.

In Summary

It’s easy to find an online degree program in your area of interest as almost all degree courses offered by regular universities are now go online. But you need to make some research in order to find an online degree program that really meets your education goals.

Hiring an employee can be a big step for many small business owners. It means the end of doing EVERYTHING yourself and passing off some of the work!

In order to make the experience rewarding for both you and your employees there are a few things that every boss and leader should do…

1) Reward people for a job well done. Its frustrating working for someone who enjoys all the financial rewards of the efforts put forth by the entire team, especially if they don’t recognize what everyone has accomplished and contributed.

It doesn’t take much to acknowledge the effort of your staff. It makes a HUGE difference in the working atmosphere when you take a few moments to acknowledge your team. People like to know that they’ve done a good job.

2) Always provide a balance between positive and negative comments. Your job as a leader is to recognize the talents of those around you and feed them with the motivation and positive energy to take YOUR ideas to entirely new levels. Help them serve you better by building up their confidence… not tearing it down.

3) Step up and accept responsibility for your projects. At the end of the day if things don’t go according to plan, in my opinion, the responsibility falls onto the leader’s shoulders. Stand up and accept the responsibility should anything ever go wrong.

If your staff always bear the burden of projects gone bad, it will drag people down and destroy your working environment. Start contributing to the emotional bank account of those around you.

If you acknowledge the behavior you want to see more of, you’ll start seeing more of it. Be positive and accept some responsibility when things don’t go according to plan.

4) When you have good people it’s your responsibility as a leader to hold on to them. People with talent will take your company to entirely new levels but if they keep leaving, the growth of your company will be stinted.

People with skills know that they have options. Hanging the carrot of a potential big pay day will only work for a certain period of time. After a while it wears off and they start looking elsewhere. The last thing you want is for them to end up with your competition.

So the moral of the story is find good people, train them, treat them well, and your business will take off.

Walking through the financial maze of stocks, bonds and mutual funds can be quite a challenge. American Century Investments offers the following tips to give you the know-how on building a profitable portfolio.

* Know your goals. Consider how much money you’ll need for your children’s education or your retirement. Whatever your vision for the future might be, set your goals and develop a concrete plan for meeting them.

* Define your investment time horizon. If you’re not planning on retiring anytime soon, you might want to have a portfolio that includes more long-term investments. If retirement is just around the corner, consider a more conservative approach.

* Determine your risk tolerance. Figure out your risk comfort level and compare that with what you can afford. In general, the longer you have to invest, the bigger risk you can take.

* Consult a professional. In order to avoid financial pitfalls later on, it is often wise to seek professional guidance when putting together a portfolio.

„Recent research shows that investors continue to grapple with some of the most basic investment concepts, suggesting a greater need for financial advice and guidance,“ said Doug Lockwood, a certified financial planner.

To help investors meet their financial goals, American Century Investments has developed On Plan Investing, a program designed to help investors build and maintain diversified investment portfolios – at no additional cost.

Combining educational tools, advice, market insight and investment products, On Plan Investing helps investors develop a personal investment strategy, whether they are new to investing, seeking guidance but still want control over their investment mix, need help positioning their portfolios with a long-term perspective or need help understanding how the markets work.

On the internet, content is known as „the king“. People visits a site not for the flashy graphics nor the wonderful website designs, but because of the information they learn from the website.

Having high quality content not just attract visitors, it also attracts search engines to visit your sites more and increase your search engine placements. However, in order to get more traffic that can turn into money, you’ll need repeat visitors who are eager to read your new update on your content site.

Therefore, your website should have rich, premium, informative content to capture repeat visitors and more search engine traffic.

Here are some simple tips that would help you build a content site that can attract more repeat visitors:

– Make sure your website’s layout is simple and easy looking to the visitors‘ eyes. Don’t add too many flashy features in your webpage to disturb your visitors’s focus when they are reading on your content.

– Always remember the most important part in your content is the headline and the first few paragraphs. Whether your reader will read on or not heavily depends on the attractiveness on these parts. Always try to capture their interests and give them what they want to know.

– Update your website with fresh new content frequently. When your visitors revisit your site and find you have not add new content, they will visit elsewhere immediately. And if this situation goes on, they will not visit your site again. Besides, search engines love websites that update content frequently, and give them higher search rank.

– You should consider to use blogs. Blogs are very easy to set up and update. Once you have entered your entries, all you have to do is to click a button to publish them. And blogs are getting indexed fast and easily in most search engines!

Content is king, and you can take benefit from it easily!

There are many conflicting theories about color and layout of a website, however I would like to list a few rules that will help you improve your website visitor experiences.

I have seen literally hundreds of landing pages and websites that have great sales copy, are promoting quality products, and have a lot of potential to be a great, but the page looks horrible. Today we are going to focus on the readability and layout of a website.

The purpose of a landing page or website is to get your visitors to read what you have to say. Whether you’re selling products and services, or providing useful information, you need to be able to effectively communicate with your visitors for them to take the action you desire. That action could be clicking on a link, signing up for a newsletter, or purchasing a product. The size and color of your text play a huge part in communicating your message to your visitors. Having Black Text, on a white background is THE easiest form of text to read.

Using color schemes that clash, or cause the text to be difficult to read will many times cause your visitors to leave your page immediately. If you want to use a different color background or text color, make sure that readability is not negatively affected. Below are a few rules that will help you improve your website.

1. Do not use dark text with a dark background. Dark text on dark background makes it hard to distinguish text from the background color. Thus making your eyes have to focus harder.

2. Do not use text colors that clash with background color. White text on a black background has a „glowing“ like affect that makes your text hard to read. Red on blue also creates a negative glowing affect.

3. Do not use large text for your main sales copy or body paragraphs. It is ok to use larger text for links and headlines, but the main text of your page should be Arial Size 2 (12pt). Arial Size 2 is the internet standard.

4. Do not waste the space at the top of the page with unnecessary graphics, flash, or banners that have no purpose. Simply listing the name of your website, or domain name is a very poor use of this prime real estate space. The first fold of your website is the most important space that you have because it is the section of the page that is visible as soon as your page loads. Do not take up this space with unnecessary graphics, flash, or banners. A Strong headline that states the benefit of your product or service is always better than a banner that has no purpose.

If you are struggling with site design or if its taking too much of your time, here’s some tools that can greatly help you.

Site Rubix: Not free but well worth the investment. Cost less than most website builders. This website builder enables you to create professional looking websites within 5 minutes, all without any Html knowledge.

DreamWeaver: This software is allows you to build visually appealing websites without Html skills, but may take you awhile to get past the learning curve that the software presents. DreamWeaver is one of the more popular but expensive website builders.

Nvu: It’s free, but will take you longer to make a website and generally the site will not look as professional.

Remember, your website serves a purpose, whatever that purpose is make sure your visitors can easily read and understand message. I hope the tips provided above assist you in creating a professional looking website that you can take pride in.

Readers on the internet nowadays, seem to be starved for information especially free information. Blog and Ezine publishers are constantly on the look out for good, original and informative articles they can add to their websites or ezine publications.

Article writers therefore have an open source of hungry readers and publishers ready to pick up their written masterpieces. The article writers have the capacity via the authors profile and signature line to advertise their primary business websites though hyper-linked key words so attaining free and targeted internet promotion for their websites.

In many cases an article can be written within a few hours, and can easily be viewed by many hundreds if not thousands of eyes over it’s lifetime. Articles have a long life span, and assuming you have chosen to write the article yourself, it is a very effective form of free advertising imparting yourself as a knowledgeable expert in your field of writing as well as giving publicity to your primary business.

You may also hire ghost writers, or if you are more comfortable speaking an article, you can hire transcribers who will put your spoken words into written form, easing the labor for you.

4 tips to help you produce better articles are:

Choose Your Headline Wisely.

Readers like to read words like tips, secrets and free preferably all in the same headline. Do not overdo your headline with too many irrelevant key words. You may get your article published but you may not attract as many readers as you may have done using words which promote a strong benefit to the reader.

Make The Content Interesting.

You should at least know something about your subject, but spend at least a little time on doing some research on your subject and the results will be superior. You do not need to be a literary genius, but check your grammar, spelling and have a friend proof read your work before making the mistake of submitting your blooper for all posterity.

Linking To Your Website.

The benefit an article writer has in submitting his work is that the publishers will allow a signature line, profile or resource box about the author. It is best to write in the 3rd person when writing about yourself. Hyper-linking your website to appropriate key words is the trick to get the search engines to notice you. Whether you use an article submission software or do it manually, keep track of the articles you have written and the number of hits to your websites. You can also use the technique of using differing keywords that are appropriate for your website, so building internet traffic to your website using alternative search terms. Check that your links are working before you submit your work.

Have Fun.

Article writing can be a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. Read other articles to get ideas, read the newspapers and watch the news. In time you will find inspiration for your next literary work in the most unusual places. Originality is the key. Your article content can be checked quickly for duplication, so keep away from removing content away from others.

Lots of people are unaware of the fact that adult acne exists and they seem not to know how to treat adult acne. People have this misconception that acne only happens during teenage years and gradually wears off as they age. For most people, this fact may be true but it is important to note that acne does not start during teenage years only. However, it is important to note that there are a significant number of adults that experience such condition.

There are lots of reasons why a person develops adult acne. But, it is important to take note that majority of the people that suffers from this condition are those who also experienced acne problems during their teens. It is also important to remember that the treatment for this is not the same when you were in your teens since your skin is already different from how it used to be. Because of this, here are some tips on how to treat adult acne.

1. First, buy a reputable over the counter acne treatment product. OTC products could easily treat mild acne breakouts. Nowadays, there are lots of acne treatments that are available in the market. But, you need to be aware if the product is safe to use or not. Some products were proven ineffective and might have harsh elements that could further damage your skin. If you were afraid to buy random products, it would be best to consult your dermatologist. This will ensure that the product suits your skin type as well. Or, you may ask for recommendations from friends and family members who encountered a similar case of acne like yours. Or, you may do your own research on the product’s way of how to treat adult acne.

2. Second, for serious breakout and if OTC products do not seem to work undergo cosmetic procedures in a reputable derma clinic. Cosmetic procedures such as microdermabrasion and laser resurfacing are some of the common procedures how to treat adult acne. Keep in mind that these procedures should be done using clean materials so it would be best to visit a reputable clinic.

3. Third, never squeeze your acne! A lot of adults have this desire to squeeze or prick their zits on their own which could cause further damage due to scars. Never ever do that because squeezing will only push the infection deep into the skin.

4. Fourth, eat healthy foods. In order to flush away toxins that could cause acne, you need to drink lots of water and eat fruits and vegetables. Keep in mind that well-hydrated skin has better chances to rejuvenate rather than dry skin. Also, try to live a healthy lifestyle by having a well-rested body. Keep in mind that stress is one of the causes of acne as well so it really pays if you get your eight-hours worth of sleep per day.

There are other tips that could help how to treat adult acne but these are some of the basic things that you need to follow. Try one tip after the other and surely, you will be able to find something that will work for you.

In our society, a man losing his hair as he ages has long been held as one of those inevitable things in life, such as death and taxes, and that there isn’t anything that can be done to stop it. Fortunately for many men, science has made advances in understanding what causes hair loss and finding effective ways to stop it and possibly even reverse it. That means that you can learn how to avoid hair loss in men.

Scientists used to think that baldness was an inherited trait, but new research is showing that that may not be the case. We now know that an overabundance of the hormone DHT might actually play a role in hair loss. When your body has too much DHT it tends to lead to what is called Follicular miniaturization. That means the hair shaft becomes smaller and smaller over time.

Here are some things you can start doing right now. These tips will help you keep your hair and scalp healthy so you can minimize the effects of DHT and stop, or at least slow down, your hair loss:

1. Keep your head clean. All the hair products you use on a day to day basis can build up on your scalp and prevent the hair follicles from growing properly. Thoroughly washing your scalp every day can help remove that buildup which can keep the coast clear for new hair growth.

2. Great hair starts on the inside. No part of your body can function at it’s best if your body isn’t getting the nutrition it needs. Eating a well balanced diet will pay many dividends, not the least of which is healthy hair. Make sure you get plenty of zinc, copper, and lean protein in your diet by eating things like: fish, leafy green vegetables and eggs. Also make sure to drink plenty of water, that will keep your body and your hair properly hydrated.

3. Use shampoos that amp up the hair you still have. These volumizing shampoos can make your hair thicker so use them on a regular basis.

4. You can also make a trip to your doctor or your local pharmacy. There are many prescription and over the counter hair loss treatments that have shown to be effective for some men. Remember, not all products work for all people so it may be necessary for you to do a little trial and error. Also keep in mind that many of the prescription drugs for hair loss have a lot of unpleasant side effects. Carefully discuss these possible side effects with your doctor or pharmacist before you choose which product to use.

We’re lucky we live in a day and age where science is learning more and more about many of things we had for so long thought to be inevitable. We now know that we can learn how to avoid hair loss in men. By following the simple tips above you can dramatically reduce your hair loss and maybe even regrow some of the hair you’ve lost.

Email marketing has changed over the years, evolving as the wants, needs, and actions of the population changed. Plenty of companies abused the email in boxes of potential customers and clients during the introduction of Email; they constantly posted emails to all accounts, nearly invading the privacy of their consumer base.

Issues revolving around spam made it even more difficult for companies to use email marketing to their advantage. Luckily, the evolution of email and society has led to a resurgence in email marketing. Companies can now communicate with their consumers through various email platforms.

Your company can easily benefit from an email marketing strategy. These four tips will help you to approach your own strategy, giving your company the marketing push that it needs to be more successful.

Speak Concisely

It is important for you to speak as quickly and concisely as possible. Consumers do not want to read long emails, just as they do not want to read large articles. Pick one thing to talk about and speak on that topic as quickly as possible. Those who manage to get their point across quickly will keep the attention of their consumers for both current and future emails.

Speak Sparingly

There are plenty of companies that try to talk to their consumers as often as possible. They fill up the in box of their customers, clients, and potential consumers with useless information. Try to scale back on your email marketing and use email sparingly. If a person hears from you less often, they will pay more attention to what you have to say when you do communicate with them.

Give Your Audience a Reason to Read

Your audience has to have a reason to read what you have to say. They have to get something out of the email, whether it be information, a sale, or an offer. Think about the emails that you will send and think about what they have to offer to the reader. If you are hard pressed to come up with a good answer, the email should not be sent.

Know your Target

You need to work to know your target so that you may talk to them at their level. The more you know about the person you are speaking to the easier it will be for you to connect with them. Connections are key when trying to induce action or interest through an email strategy.

The most important thing for your company to do is to think about the email marketing strategy as a whole. You need to think about how you are going to talk to your audience, and what you are going to give your audience. If you can speak directly to your audience and give them a reason to read and listen, you will be successful. Take the time to get to know your target to make your email strategy as powerful and successful as possible.

There are many ways to help ensure the success of your home business. Even something as simple as your frame of mind can determine whether or not your home business will be successful. Here are a few tips to help make your home business live up to its potential.

First, in keeping with the idea that a positive outlook helps your home business, remember that not everything is as bad as it seems. When things with your home business are not going well, or you feel frustrated and discouraged, continue on. Perhaps there is a new sale for your home business, or some other bit of positive encouragement right around the corner.

Second, remember that you can do almost anything that you set your mind to do. With hard work and determination, your home business can be all that you’ve dreamed it would be. Don’t let people or problems discourage you or get you to let go of your home business dreams. At the same time, don’t sit idle and expect your home business dreams to happen without your help, either. Your hard work, tenacity, and determination can cause your home business to prosper in all the ways you’ve hoped.

Third, it is important to remember not to let your pride get in the way of what you want to accomplish as a home business owner. Build bridges with your home business customers and other colleagues by admitting when you are wrong, making up for mistakes, and doing whatever it takes to earn their business. Additionally, in your home business, it is important to share credit with any other business partners or colleagues that have been part of something positive. Carrying out these good home business practices will keep you in good standing with your customers and business associates.

Fourth, remember to write down the goals for your home business. It is a proven fact that a home business, or any other venture, will get much farther toward the goal if it is written down. Make a home business plan for yourself. What do you hope to accomplish in your home business within the next year or two? What about five years from now? How can you make that happen? This is beneficial to your home business, not only by causing you to remember your original intentions, but also by helping you to break down your hopes and dreams into smaller pieces of a home business plan.

Tip 1: Rise above the cravings

Imagine the cigarettes as crutches. You’ve always had these crutches to lean on and soon, it becomes impossible to walk without them. The important thing to learn is that as soon as you walk on your feet again, they’ll quickly regain strength. It may be a little known fact, but about half of what a smoker inhales from his cigarette is pure air. The next time you’re hit with a craving, take some deep breaths and relax. You will soon be able to rise above the craving, feel refreshed, and move on.

Tip 2: All the reasons to quit

Why do you want to quit? Do you have children? Do you want to live to see your grandchildren? Are you sick of the smell? Whatever your reasons are, write them down. Keep a daily journal of how you feel and in the very first entry list in bold letters every reason you have for quitting. List things like health reasons, expense, inconvenience, bad breath, or other reasons and make the list as long as possible. Also be sure to list how you WILL feel when you’ve kicked the habit.

Tip 3: The good, the bad and the ugly

After you complete your lists of reasons you want to quit and how you’ll feel after you’ve quit, make a list of the consequences of not quitting. Have other smokers in your family gotten cancer? Have they died? Do they have to speak through a hole in their neck? Will you be unable to pay off debt because you’re always buying cigarettes? Whatever you consequences, be sure to list all of them. As above, be sure to list the consequences (good consequences, of course) of quitting. Keep them to look forward to.

Tip 4: Break time!

Most smokers agree: a cigarette is a break. When quitting, give yourself breaks, but do something. Go for walk, eat a piece of fruit or drink some juice. This is critical because the body will be going through changes expelling all the accumulated poisons. The fruit will aid this process in many ways.

Good luck!

Search engine rankings are an important factor to consider when you have a web site that needs more traffic. If your web site doesn’t have a good position in the rankings then it will be hard to find.

Since most searchers click on the first few results, you need to make sure that your web site is ranked highly enough so that people can easily find it on the first page of search engine results. Although no search engine optimization company can guarantee a high rankings for your site permanently, often times hiring a web marketing company will pay off many times over. For those of you doing it yourself or those of you that want to ensure your marketing company is doing a good job, here are some tips for raising the search engine rankings of your web site.

1. Content

Content is an important factor in high search engine rankings. Make sure that you have plenty of content throughout your site with your target keywords in the articles. It’s also worth doing a search for web sites similar to yours and taking a look at their articles for ideas. Keywords are an important factor and they should be used throughout the content of your website.

2. Web Site URL

Your web site’s URL can help you rank higher with the search engines if it contains your keywords. However, don’t think that naming your site after your keywords will always help your rankings – you need to do more than just that. But still, it is one of the factors in improving a search engine ranking.

3. Search Terms

Search terms should be written out in text, instead of graphics. If you use pictures, be sure to give them alt tags. If you want a good rank in search engines then these things that may seem small should be considered, as search engines can read the text but not the graphics.

4. Page Title

The title of your page is very important, and if you choose the title properly then it can surely make a big difference in search engine ranking. Terms such ‘free article on safe children’s toys’, or ‘contact the children’s toy expert today’ are good to use as titles on pages containing such content. The titles themselves are very specific to the page and also may not have much competition being as specific as they are. The title area is the most important place to include your keyword phrases, so make sure that you utilize it.

Master these four tips and you’ll be on your way to getting free traffic. Look for other tips to keep your site moving up.

If you are new to the virtual world, you may not know how to approach the actual gaming itself. There are actions, steps, etiquette expectations and goals that you are not going to be accustomed to.

If you want to make sure that you blend in with the new community, you need to utilize these four gaming tips. These tips for playing virtual world games will help you to get off on the right foot and start your gaming off as expertly as possible.

Read or Play the Tutorials

If you are about to start playing a game in a virtual world, you need to read any available tutorials. If possible, you should play any tutorial games that you can find. These tutorials will give you all of the tips and tricks that you need to start the game on the right foot. It will help you to start the game correctly, which will give you an advantage over gamers who will fail to do the same. If the game is simply interacting, it will help you to get the most out of all of your interactions.

Understand All Hot Keys

Hot keys are shortcuts in the game that will allow you to choose certain actions and functions quickly and easily. This simply makes your gaming experience easier and faster. These hotkeys are just like hot keys in all other programs; by pressing a control button and another key, you can pull up a box or perform a specific action.

Be Courteous

One of the biggest tips that anyone can follow for online gaming comes from the actual community interactions themselves. If you want to be a respected member of the gaming community, you need to be courteous and respectful to all of the other members of the community.

If you run into any players who are being disrespectful, be respectful back to them. Do not get in fights or arguments, as this can simply cause you to lose your temper.

Take Breaks

If you plan on playing in virtual online games, you need to make sure that you are taking breaks. You need to get up and move around after playing for a few hours. Extended computer use can cause wrist and arthritis issues.

A lot of people tend to skip tutorials and hot keys, assuming that they will learn these valuable pieces of information over time. Failure to utilize these tools before you actually play virtual world games can actually harm your overall game play. Take the time to understand how to play the game, and take the time to understand how to act within the community. While it may seem like a lot of work for a game, you will find that you have a more enjoyable experience with your actual game play.

Many who find themselves in debt feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of money that they owe. A credit card consolidation loan can help to relieve some of that pressure and stress. This type of loan will be able to consolidate your loan into one single payment. This payment will be less than you would expect to pay each month. This can be an incredibly helpful tool for those who do feel overwhelmed. If you are considering this type of loan, use these four tips to be as prepared as possible.

Know the Numbers

If you are considering a consolidation loan, you need to understand all of the numbers involved. These numbers include the current amount of debt that you have, and the interest on that debt. It also includes the amount of interest that the loan will have, and the amount of time that it will be paid back in. You need to understand how much your current debt will cost you, and how much this loan will cost you.

Have a Plan

If you are considering a consolidation loan, you need to have a financial plan for your debt. Consolidation loans will not work for people without a plan, as they keep the same spending habits that caused their current debt. The loans still require you to budget to make a monthly payment. You need to have a plan to ensure that you can make this monthly payment.

Spend Less

If you are considering a consolidation loan, you should look to spend less money each and every day. Some people think of a consolidation loan and think that it will give them extra spending money. This extra money should be used in a constructive way that will benefit your financial situation.

Be Sure to Continue a Savings Account

One of these constructive sources for any extra money should be a savings account. A consolidated loan will give you an opportunity to start up, or fortify, a savings account. A good savings account will help to prevent a repeat of the debt situation that caused the need for a consolidation loan. To create this savings account, budget for a specific amount of money to be sent directly to savings per pay period. This will force you to save the money for the account.

You need to completely understand how your debt will be affected by this type of loan. You need to understand the numbers of the consolidation loan to fully understand how your debt will change. From this point, you can make changes in your life that will help you to turn your debt situation around. These tips will work alongside your credit card consolidation loan to give you the best financial situation possible.

Are you sick and tired of trying to lose weight with no real results? Are you wasting your money on those new and not so fabulous fab diets? Well stop, drop what you are doing and listen up. You should not try another diet until you read this article. Because this article’s 4 tips are going to put you on the right road for losing weight safely and keep it off.

These tips are based on scientific principles and they have always been around just nobody has known where to look or didn’t take the time to look. These basic tips are also ones that these so called weight loss programs don’t want you to know about; so they can continue to suck your money dryout of your wallet.

1. Increase Your Metabolism

* If you are looking for long term and permanent weight loss it is extremely important, that you are able to boost your metabolism. The best way for you to achieve elevated metabolism is to have functional muscle on your whole body.

One of best proven ways that you can achieve this is through strength training. There is just not another method that will provide you with the same results. When you begin your strength training you will notice and increased amount of functional lean muscle on your body to get your metabolism to elevate. After just one session you will begin to feel the boost in your metabolism by increased energy. This boost will help you burn your calories a lot faster.

2. Lean Muscle

* Lean muscle is another thing you will need to look into when you are trying to lose weight. The amount of fat and calories you will burn, will be directly related to the lean muscle that you add to your body. By having a muscle structure that is able to sustain more energy and the ability to use this energy to great effect, when you are performing strength training, then you will be able to burn off the calories much faster; as well as the excess fat. Once you are able to build more lean muscle through your very own strength then your body will soon be able to burn off fat more efficiently.

3. Decrease Calories

* A low calorie diet can throw you into starvation mode therefore you need to learn how to lower your calorie intake by food choices. You will be able to do this by creating a seven day diet plan and then writing down everything you eat in that week.

After you have done this you will be able to add up the total amount of calories you have eaten and then divide it by seven and you will have your total calorie intake for one day. Once you have figured this out you can begin to find ways to cut that daily calorie count by 100 calories but no more than this to prevent those starvation thoughts from kicking in. This will help you begin to generate a slow weight loss, but the majority of the loss will be fat only.

4. Fast Walking

* Now the key to continue your weight loss is to perform brisk walking. Brisk walking helps you continue to burn those calories and keep your weight off that you may have already lost.

All four of these steps are an important part of your reaching your overall weight loss goals. Prior to implementing these tips it is always wise to seek the advice of your doctor, to help you to determine if you are physically able to implement them.

1. Use cedar matches, if possible. If you prefer to use a lighter, make sure it’s butane lighter to avoid strong odors.

2. Warm the open end of the cigar (aka ‚the foot‘ of the cigar) slowly over the flame, without touching it to the fire. Let a black ring form around the end.

3. Place the cigar in your mouth and draw in slowly. Hold the cigar over the flame, about half an inch above it, again without touching. Continue to draw in until the cigar draws the flame. Turn the cigar slowly, spinning it to establish an even burn.

4. Once your cigar is lit, take it out of your mouth and observe the burn you have established. If the burn appears to be uneven, simply blow on the unlit sections to draw the burn, and then take one or two draws from the cigar to reestablish an even burn.

For many people, the idea of learning a foreign language is both exciting and intimidating, especially if the thought brings back memories of learning a second language in middle school or high school.

The truth is that learning a foreign language is a lot easier than most people expect particularly if you follow these tips which I have discovered after a lifetime of helping other people learn everything from Japanese and Arabic to German and French.

1. Make mistakes. The way to learn a new language is by making errors. That‘s right; your success will come from repeatedly failing. Give yourself permission to make mistakes and you will learn more than you ever dreamed possible.

2. Look for words your native tongue has in common with the new language you want to learn. For example, the word for American is Americano in Spanish, Américain in French and Americano in Italian and Portuguese. Interesting is interesante in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese and interessant in French. The words for chocolate and café also fit this pattern. Recognizing words that are familiar to you will help you build your new vocabulary faster.

3. Take chances. When you attempt to speak a foreign language you run the risk of not being understood but this is a risk worth taking. After all, it is better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly! And when you visit another country you will find that the native speakers will appreciate your attempts to communicate in their language–even if you make a mistake or two.

4. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Practice makes perfect. Like any new skill you want to hone the more time you spend cultivating it the quicker the skill becomes part of you. Use your time commuting to work or relaxing at home to work on new material or reinforce the old.

I wish you every success as you master the language of your choice and begin enjoying the many benefits of being multilingual in today’s increasingly global world.

Mark Frobose, founder of Language Dynamics Inc., is a well-known keynote speaker fluent in four languages. He has recorded and published more than 50 foreign language works, including the Amazon.com bestsellers Behind the Wheel Spanish and Conversational Spanish in Nothing Flat.

The fireplace has long been the favorite spot to gather in the American home. A place for warmth, the fireplace adds ambience, sparking memories that are to be treasured. With all the benefits that a fireplace can bring, there are some major downsides that if not addressed can cause a love for the fireplace to wane.

With soaring energy costs, the chief negative of having a fireplace has to be its inefficiency. When there is a fire burning, the fireplace does indeed radiate warmth in its general vicinity, but it also creates a convection current that can actually pull conditioned air out of the room and up the chimney causing your furnace to work overtime. When the fire is not burning, the fireplace has a damper which is supposed to block inside air from escaping and outside air from invading. The problem is that the damper is usually made of metal (this type of damper technology hasn’t changed in over 100 years!) and has no seal, which means that the damper is incredibly inefficient.

Your home has a dirty little secret – the fireplace that is designed to warm your house is actually doing the opposite and costing you hundreds of dollars in energy costs. Don’t fret – with a little investment of time and money, you can turn that inefficient fireplace into a powerhouse heater that will reduce your energy bills and add even more charm to your existing fireplace.

The following is a list of 4 things that you can do yourself to drastically reduce the heating costs associated with the inefficiency of your fireplace.

1. Top Sealing Dampers replace the fireplace throat damper and are installed at the top of the chimney. The top sealing damper has a seal that acts like a storm door keeping the expensive conditioned air inside the house and the outside air – outside. This principle works year round, whether you’re heating or cooling your house. This product can be purchased online and is easily installed by either a homeowner or a handyman.

2. A fireback is a cast iron plate that is placed at the back of your fireplace. Its purpose is to protect the back wall from fire damage and it usually features a design that adds to the homes decor. The fireback improves the fireplaces efficiency by absorbing the heat from the fire and radiating the heat back into the room.

3. A Fireplace Heater pulls fresh air from the room, circulates it through a chamber that is heated by the fire and then blows the heated air back into the room. These heaters are closed systems so no smoke from the fireplace is invading the home. Depending on which kind you purchase, these heaters can make a significant difference in your homes temperature, even heating a full room on its own. Specific fireplace heaters can be installed with fireplace glass doors which will kick your cost savings up another notch.

4. Fireplace Glass Doors will likely carry the largest investment, but you can reduce some of that cost by doing some of the work yourself. There are a number of fireplace doors that can be purchased online and come with easy to install instructions. The fireplace glass door creates a barrier between the living space and the chimney, thus reducing the area that your furnace will have to heat. This alone is a good reason to install these doors, but it’s not the only reason. Fireplace glass doors offer another level of safety for the home by protecting children and pets from the fire. If you have a wood burning fireplace you will want to purchase the screen mesh that is designed to go with the fireplace glass doors. This will allow you to have the doors open while the fire is burning and still have your home protected from sparks and embers. Fireplace glass doors are now being manufactured with modern designs and really add beauty and charm to the fireplace.
If you’re handy, all of these suggestions are easy to accomplish. In addition, all of the products, while difficult to find locally, can easily be purchased online. If you’re concerned about high energy costs but you want to keep your fireplace, then it’s time to plug up the holes in your monthly energy budget by plugging up the holes in your fireplace.

USB FM Radios are helping to push FM radio technology into new forms and new mediums. With this technology, you can easily listen to your favorite radio stations wherever you have your laptop. With your headphones, you can easily listen to radio stations as you sit in a coffee shop or Internet lounge, or while in the comfort of your own home.

If you want to be able to have FM radio at your disposal, you are going to need to find a USB FM radio that meets all of your needs. These four tips will help you to find the best USB radio available.

Headphone Jack

If you want to find the best USB radio available, you need to look at small details. One detail to look for is the headphone jack. This headphone jack will allow you to play your radio while using your computer, even when you are around other people. While most brands feature a headphone jack with their USB radio, some may not. If you do not check, you may wind up with a USB radio that does not meet all of your needs.

Ability to Play Through your Computer Speakers

There are specific USB radios that have the ability to connect with your computer when they are plugged in. This could allow your radio stations to be played through the computer speakers themselves. Not every company offers this benefit. You must do research to ensure that you find a brand that features this playing benefit.

Settings and Memory

You want to make sure that you are looking into USB radios that offer various settings and memory options. Look for products that have the ability to remember all of your favorite radio stations with their USB radio. While some offer this capability, others do not. You must look for the specific USB radios that feature the settings that you need to fully enjoy your USB radio experience.

Cost and Size

If you want the best USB radio, you need to look at both cost and size. It is important to note that the best USB radio may not be the most expensive, and may not be the smallest. If you find two products that feature the same benefits, go with the brand that is the least expensive. Likewise, if you see two brands that feature the same benefits, but one is bigger and one is smaller, go with the lower cost. Generally, this will be the bigger USB radio.

These various aspects of the USB FM radio will help you to find the perfect USB radio. You need to look into all of these various aspects to ensure that you are getting what you want and need from your new purchase. Each USB radio will be unique giving you the ability to find the best radio for your computer.

One of the most relaxing vacations you can take right now is an ocean cruise. Many people have the belief that a cruise will cost them more than they can afford, but there are some good tips that can help you get the cruise you want at a price that fits your budget.

1: Cruise ships have set itineraries so they want their ships to be at full capacity each time they leave the port. If you schedule your cruise vacation for the off season you can save as much as 50% of the cost during peak season. Keep a close eye on last minute deals too. Many cruise lines will offer much lower prices to sell those remaining spots instead of setting sail with them unsold.

2: Take the time to look at everything a cruise package is offering you. Most of them are all inclusive meaning everything on the ship is included in one price. Yet there are many amenities that you won’t be using you are throwing your money away. Look for a cruise that only offers the items you will be likely to use.

3: When you book your cruise you will be offered many different options for your accommodations. The more room you have and the nicer they are, the more expensive they will be. Yet on a cruise most people only spend time in their room to sleep and shower. You can save a great deal of money going with more basic accommodations.

4: If you can get a large group of people to book the same cruise, you will likely be able to save 15% or 20%. A group in generally considered 20 people or more. The entire group will get the discount on the portion they are responsible to pay. Make sure you find out which cruise line can offer you the best deal before you commit to one.

Are you fed up with continuously seeing no measurable or long-lasting results whenever you try to lose weight? Or maybe you are sick and tired of throwing your money away on the latest fad diets, only to be let down again. Stop! That’s right, stop whatever you’re doing, you are going to want to hear this. Don’t even think about trying another diet plan or weight loss program until you read the following article. Why? Because the four tips will put you on the fast to lose weight safely and keep it off.

Each of the tips are based on science. That means they have always been around and are not fads. It’s just that a lot of people selling the latest weight loss programs don’t always like to share them, so it’s not your fault if you haven’t been able to effectively lose weight.

1. The Magic of Muscle – In short, the more lean muscle you have as you are trying to lose weight, the better. The amount of calories you are able to burn off is related, in part, to how much muscle mass you have. On top of that, more muscle allows you to exercise more effectively, and have more endurance. The fact that muscle is more attractive than fat doesn’t hurt either.

One of the best ways to build muscle mass is through strength training. You can still engage in aerobic exercise, and should, but nothing beats lifting weights and resistance training to add muscle to your body. This is important because muscle also requires more calories to stay fed, which is good, and brings us to the next point…

2. Stoke the Furnace – What we are talking about here is metabolism; that is the rate at which your body burns calories. As we have already seen, muscle tissue is excellent for burning calories and boosting your metabolism. However, there is something else you can do to keep your metabolism whirring along.

Eating smaller meals throughout the day, as opposed to three larger meals, will keep your body working at burning calories. It also has the added benefit of keeping your hunger from getting out of control.

3. Fast Feet – We’ll keep this tip short and sweet. A great way to lose weight is to take brisk walks on a regular basis. It’s not only easy enough to do, but it will also help you to lose weight safely and keep it off.

4. Cut Calories – This may be the biggest „secret“ that fad diets try to conceal, but it gets right to the heart of the matter. The only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you take in. So far we have looked at burning calories, but now it’s time to switch to reducing how many you take in. The good news is that you don’t have to religiously count every calorie that goes into your mouth. All you have to do is make better food choices, and make a conscious effort to eat reasonable portions.

The fact of the matter is that a high percentage of the population has a weight problem and that doesn’t just reflect this country, but it’s a world wide phenomenon. Being a plus sized women doesn’t mean that you have to give up on style and settle for unflattering stretch pants an mu mu’s. Quite the opposite in fact, now more than every there is a large range of fashionable clothes designs for obese women.

For the most part fashion comes down to money. And plus sized women tend to have money, so it follows that many clothing manufacturers and retailers now make fashionable, flattering clothes for plus sized women.

With all the choices now available to full figured women, it’s more important than ever to know what styles will compliment your figure and what styles will accentuate the areas of your body that may not be your best.

Here are some tips to keep in mind:

1. Don’t wear baggy clothes! This is one of the biggest mistakes many full figured women make. They think they can camouflage their heaviness but all baggy clothes do is to make you appear even bigger than you already are. A better approach is to buy clothes that fit properly, not too tight, not too loose. Think Goldilocks: you want clothes that fit just right!

2. Many people incorrectly think that in clothing ‚petite‘ means small. Not so. It just refers to any women who is less than 5’4″ tall. They can still be full figured and wear petite clothing. If you are a petite woman, make sure that you stay away from any styles that go below hip level since that look will just make you look shorter, and rounder.

3. You don’t only have to wear black. While it is true that black does have a slimming effect, the same can be said of most monochromatic outfits. If you add a touch of color near your face, say with a scarf, you will actually draw the eye upward away from the fuller parts of your body.

4. Get a properly fitted bra. Many women don’t even realize that the bra they are wearing isn’t sized properly for them. Many bra shops will measure you for free. If your bra is too tight it tends to cause the fat in your upper torso to bulge over the straps. That isn’t a look anyone really wants to have.

It’s important for every women to be comfortable in her own skin. Confidence is consistently rated as one of the most attractive qualities a women can have by men who are surveyed. If you’re not completely happy with the way your body looks than work on making changes, but in the meantime, project confidence and self love, even if you have to fake it a little bit, until you reach the healthy weight you want to be. Also look for clothes designs for obese women to make the most out of what you’ve got while you’re in transition.

Probably the last question you need to ask yourself. Weigh up between image (size, shape, style, colour), performance (play time, memory, compatibility, gizmos, other functions) and quality (useability, interface, design, battery life). Work out what’s important, and Google or eBay will do the rest for you (or if not, then your younger brother or sister will also suffice). There is always a cheaper price for something, but there is always more hassle to get something that you want exactly. If you’ve ever bid for an eBay item, then found something way cheaper than what you’ve just bought, then you’ll know what I mean. Look, if you’re going to spend money (any amount of money), then it’s important to at least pick something that works long enough for you to at least look the part, and one that you won’t throw out the window because that’s all it’s good for. Therefore, battery life, memory, interface and compatibility should not be taken lightly.

Part IV – So what do I do with it?

You’ve got yourself an MP3 player, so what’s next. Well, you can use it as a fashion accessory, play some MP3 music, or just leave it sitting in the closet until a better model comes out. It’s hard to say unless you’ve got one, and once you’ve got one, you’ll work out what to do with it. Sometimes it’s an expensive lesson to learn, but most times when you spend money for something, you invariably find a use for it, even if it’s just another item on the eBay used section.

Useful advice? Well, don’t just take my word for it, because even bad advice needs to be taken to be believed. Take these suggestions into account when you are choosing your mp3 player, and you’ll be well equipped.

Choosing an MP3 player used to be a much easier shopping decision than it is today. Just a couple of years ago, only MP3 players played MP3 music. Nowadays, every man and his dog that has a mobile phone, laptop or memory storage device can play MP3 music. Now that there are a few more things to take into consideration, it is wise to think about a few issues before splashing out some serious money (or trying to save some serious money).

Part I – Do you need an MP3 player?

Probably the most important question you need to ask yourself. Why do you want one? Does your mobile phone already come with an MP3 player? What about your laptop? Why would you need one if you’ve already got one? The only reason MP3 players exist in their own right is because a mobile phone is a much better device for making phone calls on the go, and an MP3 player, well, it is a much better device for playing MP3 music. When there is a comprise in function, there is a comprise in function (i.e. quality and performance).

Part II – Do you need a good MP3 player?

Probably the second most important question you need to ask yourself. It does sound like a rhetorical question. Of course you want a good MP3 player, but please provide a definition for „good“. Do you want something that looks good, plays good (well is probably a better word) or sounds good (or all three perhaps). Remember that these days people will buy things for the image (looks/sounds good), performance (plays good) and quality (lasts good). All three come at a cost (though not necessarily equal in weighting), and usually you’ll find that two out of three ain’t bad. Sometimes big name brands not only looks good (the Japanese designers are experts at this), sounds good (for example, hey look, I’ve got a Sony -insert model here- !), but they might actually have good performance or quality as well (Some say the iPod belongs in that category, but I don’t want to start another online forum about it). But most of the time, practical people start with performance or quality, and just hope that it’s something they can hide in their designer label clothing’s MP3 pocket.

The sun is about to rise and the weather is crisp. You pack your tackle box, grab your pole and buy some worms. You make your way to the fishing dock dreaming you had the perfect fishing boat so you were landlocked no more. Now that dream can become reality with these 4 easy tips for finding and purchasing the perfect fishing boat!

Have a clear understanding of the purpose of the fishing boat. Obviously the boat is going to be used for fishing, but is it going to be used on oceans or in lakes? For day time trips or overnight stays? If you play to stay in your boat overnight, be sure to choose a boat with a hull which will allow you to ride the waves much better than a boat without one.

Make sure to have a clear understanding of your budget. Boats are very expensive items. You should be well acquainted with your finances before you take on the extra burden of a boat purchase. Boats with hulls for overnight stays and rough waters are obviously more expensive than small boats for small lakes. Know your limitations.

Read and understand the warranties fully before making a purchase. A warranty can be your best friend. Make sure the dealer you buy the boat from offers you the proper coverage in case there is any defect or problem with your boat. You don’t want to end up having to pay huge amounts to fix your boat because you forgot to check out the warranties!

Make sure the boat has proper certification .The NMMA, or the National Marine Manufacturer’s Association is an organization that tests boats that are manufactured by different companies. They only certify those boats that pass their rigorous testing. Any boat certified by the NMMA is one that you would feel safe owning.

Also, just like cars, boats must be registered. Be prepared to register your boat just like your vehicle (i.e. paying money). On top of that expense, you must now stock your boat with life jackets, brand new fishing gear, food and a cooler so you can get fishing!

Let’s face it beating the bookie is tough.

It’s a scandal… They collect the money, and then drop the odds seconds before the race starts, leaving you and the rest of the punters, out of pocket or short changed… even if you did pick the winner! In This Article, I show you tips on how to win at every bet.

Margins are usually tight enough without giving away your hard earned cash to greedy bookmakers or self appointed guru’s for „insider information“ with no proof or guarantee the horse will actually win… It’s easy to run up a £100 phone bill calling a tipster every day for one or two winners a week.

Sound familiar?

Statistically around 30 to 40 percent of all favourites usually win, yet still the bookies rake in more cash than most of the punters put together… they just don’t care if the favourites win or lose!

What if you could bet like a bookie?

Betting on horses is something that many people have done at one time or another, but most people don’t know a great deal about the ins and outs of horse racing handicapping. Here are the tips you should use.

1)Begin by looking at the racing form. These forms are available at the track, at newsstands, and are now available online. The best place to begin when handicapping the horses is to look at the trainer and jockey. Some people also look at the past performances, but for the most part, it is too difficult for you to gain too much out of past races. You can, however, easily pick up on trainer and jockey percentages. This can eliminate a great many horses from your handicapping process and is the first place You should begin.

2 ) Next, Look at recent form. Here, you don’t need to look to far. The past three races are your best indicator of how a horse is likely to perform in the current race. You can look at the finishing position and the speed figures. The speed figures are listed in the racing form and are based on how the horse did in his or her last race on a particular track and against the field he or she faced. You can take the speed figures of the last three races of a horse and judge those numbers against the rest of the field. This should give you a decent idea of how the race shapes up.

3) Always go a little bit more in depth and look at horses that are suited to a particular course or a particular surface. Some horses run better on grass than they do on dirt and some horses are suited to a particular distance. This last part is really true, as some horses are bred for stamina while others are bred for speed.

4) Finaly, you should look beyond the obvious favorites and search for value. Betting the horses successfully is about finding value. You can’t consistently bet favorites and win. You also aren’t likely to find longshots that always win. You have to be somewhere in the middle. You can also incorporate exotics into your horse betting, and that may be your best bet of all. But that is a subject all on its own and deserves its own discussion.

Advice from an Auction Genius

Renowned eBiz author Sydney Johnson created the now-famous Auction Genius courses (http://AuctionGenius.com) to aid people wanting to create their own e-businesses. She shares some important tips for anyone looking to learn the online retail industry:

Tip 1—Start Small.

Many of Johnson’s students are eager to dive in head first, ready to invest all their savings into overseas imports or shopping network returns. But Johnson discourages such risky moves for two reasons.

• They haven’t considered all the costs—the enormous minimum quantities they’ll have to buy to get the discounted prices or the tremendous costs of shipping imports.

• They have little experience and, therefore, no way of knowing all that these transactions entail.
Says Johnson, “You’re going to make mistakes…The way to minimize any kind of horrible error is to go very small.” Don’t invest a lot to start with—learn with inexpensive items. Start with a minimum investment; and as you begin to make a profit, put that money back into your business rather than buying new golf clubs or tennis shoes.

Tip 2—Research the Market and Test your Results.

As you go, you’ll learn which products sell well and where you’re actually making a profit. Johnson has a “funnel theory” on finding your product niche: “You start really broad…you have huge categories. And then you learn how to do your market research and you funnel down and…get smaller and smaller until out the other end of the funnel comes a handful of products that you can really do well with.”

Tip 3—Start on eBay

EBay is a great tool for beginners just learning about online retail. There are several reasons why it’s a smart place to start:

• It’s quick, easy, and inexpensive.

• The traffic is built in, and the people that are seeing your listings are seeing them because they’re searching for your type of product.

• It’s a good way to get exposed to the ins and outs of the business.

Tip 4—There’s No Such Thing as “Get Rich Quick!”

Starting an e-business is just like starting any other business—it takes patience and persistence. Don’t expect to be magically rolling in money overnight. And don’t just jump at every “opportunity” that comes along for fear of missing out. Research it first—if it sounds too good to be true…well, you know… If you take the time to understand what you’re doing, there’s plenty of room in the e-commerce industry for you to make money.

Brick-and-mortar stores often change displays, move goods around, and put impulse items beside checkouts. The reason behind these changes is they’re analyzing customer traffic and studying behavioral patterns to understand how consumers shop. As an online retailer, you need to study your customer traffic as well in order to increase sales.

Listen: Your Customers Are Talking

There are a number of web traffic analytics companies, such as http://OneStat.com and http://StatCounter.com, that analyze your customers’ shopping patterns. They follow your customers’ clicks to and through your web pages and provide you with valuable info on how your customers experience your website:

1. You see which keywords bring you, not only the most hits, but also the highest conversion rates. People often find the generic words they use bring them a great deal of traffic, but that traffic averages a shorter stay on the site. The longer people spend on your site, the more likely they are to buy something. Analyzing that data allows you to see which keywords are effective for you.

2. You see the average amount of time users spend on your site. Due to latent conversion, this is a good indicator of how business will be in the coming months. If your users are taking their time, looking at things carefully, that tells you they’re really interested and will likely come back to complete the transaction.

3. You see if your traffic’s leaving as soon as they hit your landing page—if they are, you know you have a problem. As soon as users get there, you want to reinforce to them they’re in the right place. Says John Marshall, founder and CEO of http://ClickTracks.com, “Make sure the keyword the user clicked is associated with, and strongly connected to the copy in that landing page, and throughout the experience… Just paying attention to that could probably get you a 20% to 50% improvement in your conversion rate.”

4. You see where people are exiting your site. This is especially important when you have customers leaving in the middle of checkout. If you see a high rate of users, with full shopping carts, leaving on a particular page, you can pinpoint what’s costing you sales:

• If they’re exiting on the page where you explain shipping costs, you might see your shipping appears higher than your competitors’.

• If they’re leaving halfway through filling out the buyer’s information, you might consider that your buyer questionnaire’s too long.

Web analytics puts you in a position to see what’s working on your website and what isn’t. It’s a way to see where you need to make changes and then measure how effective those changes are.

There are so many opportunities on the internet offering to set people up in their own home based internet business that it can be difficult to separate the real, legitimate opportunities from the ones that only want your money. Knowing what to look for hidden within the offers can mean the difference between finding a legitimate business to operate and ending up helping someone else make money while losing your own.

With most fraudulent offers for in internet business there are four red flags that need to be thoroughly investigated before signing up to work for the website. Understand that not all of the companies that make these claims are out to take your money, but these are four things that many less than honest companies have in common:

1. Large upfront investment
2. The chance to make big money with little work
3. Do not clearly state what you will be selling
4. Lack of available contact information

While it is not uncommon for business to want a fee to become a representative for their business, you have to consider the amount demanded from you before you can start selling their product or service. You should also have a clear picture of what you will get in return for your investment. It is common for the term training to be listed, but many times the training consists of links to other sites where you are expected to learn about the company’s business model.

The training may also focus on how to recruit others into the business, offering to pay a “bounty” for bringing in new people. A company that focuses on bringing in more people instead of selling the product may be on the border of being illegal.

Anyone who has ever been involved in a business knows it takes work. One of the most common pitches is the promise of a big payday without having to work more than an hour or two a day…or even a week. There is no such thing as a free lunch and those who try to convince you otherwise and not being totally honest. That disclaimer about income may not a representative of the potential earnings, should beg the question about why even bother to list it.

If you have been reading an online based business opportunity for several minutes and have no idea about the product or service you are being asked to sell, it could be an indication of a scam. Many keep it a secret until you have spent your money and find out there is no way you can sell this to others with a clear conscious. Know what the product is, and how much it will cost, before considering the offer any further.

Look for contact information. If the only means of contacting the company is through an email address, it could be they don’t plan to be around long enough to answer any questions or complaints. Money back guarantees are also only about as good as the contact information. Email addresses and post office boxes are not good contacts.

Declawing is a major surgery known as onychectomy, performed under anesthesia, that removes the tip of each digit (from the first knuckle out) of the cat’s forepaws. There is a slight chance of death in the surgery, and a declawed cat may have an increased risk of infection and life-long discomfort in its paws. This surgery is not recommended for an adult animal and is considered an act of animal cruelty in some countries (see below).

People generally have cats declawed to prevent them from hunting and from damaging furniture. Rarely, vicious cats are declawed. In the United States, some landlords require that tenants‘ cats be declawed.

Veterinarians are generally critical of the procedure and some refuse to perform it because the absence of claws in a cat:

1. Deprives it of its main defense abilities, including escaping from predators by climbing trees;
2. Impairs its stretching and exercise habits, leading to muscle atrophy;
3. Compromises its ability to balance on thin surfaces such as railings and fence tops, leading to injury from falls;
4. Can cause insecurity and a subsequent tendency to bite.

This operation is rare outside of North America. In Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, declawing is forbidden by the laws against cruelty to animals.[17] In many other European countries, it is forbidden under the terms of the European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals, unless „a veterinarian considers [such] non-curative procedures necessary either for veterinary medical reasons or for the benefit of (the) animal“. [18] In Britain, animal shelters find it difficult to place imported cats that have been declawed and subsequently most are euthanized.

An alternative to declawing is the application of blunt, vinyl nail caps that are affixed to the claws with nontoxic glue, requiring periodic replacement when the cat sheds its claw sheaths (about every four to six weeks). However, the cat will still experience difficulties because the capped nails are not as effective as claws.

Each year when our renewal notices come through the post for our home contents insurance and/or home buildings insurance, most of us automatically sign the form and send it back to the insurance company – after all, we already know how much the premiums are going to be. Big financial mistake, and here are 4 reasons why:

Did You Buy Anything New In The Last Year?

If you bought anything new in the last year, say a new television or video recorder, then the value of this new purchase will not be included in the renewal notice you just sent off to the insurance company. Likewise, if you sold anything of value over the last year, and have not informed the insurance company, then you are paying home contents insurance for something you no longer own. Either way, your not paying the right amount of insurance premiums.

Did The Costs Stay Static?

If you have home contents insurance then you are insuring your personal property for the replacement cost of buying the same thing new. On the other hand, part of your home buildings insurance should cover the cost of labour and materials. Now ask yourself, would the cost of replacing the picture hanging in your living room be the same today as it was last year? If the answer is that it would cost you more, tough luck, you’ll only get paid out what you said the cost of replacing it would be! The same can be said of your friendly builder, would he charge you the same for an hour of his time and for his materials today as he would have done last year? If the answer here is no, then you should be expecting to pay him the difference.

Did The Value Of Your Home Stay The Same?

Similar to the above, with your home buildings insurance you need to be asking yourself whether or not the value of your home stayed the same this year as it was last year? You need to be asking yourself this question even if you didn’t do any work to the house – such as building an extension – that would naturally automatically add value to your home.

Is Your House Any Safer Today?

Here the question is, have you done anything to your house over the last year that would mean your home would be considered safer today than last year? For example, did you add any deadlocks to your doors or windows? If so, then there’s a very good chance your home contents insurance premium would be reduced, as the security in your house is a major consideration in assessing your premium (along with the crime rate in your neighbourhood, so you may also want to check and see if this has gone up or down also).

Keep in mind that time stands still for no man. As such, you need to read your home contents insurance and/or home buildings insurance renewal notices very carefully to make sure that they reflect, as accurately as possible, your life today and not your life of yester-year.

Wedding cake icing seems like a small and relatively unimportant part of the overall wedding planning process. Most want their cake to look good, but are more worried about the cost of the cake, the amount of cake available, and the flavor of the cake. The frosting will actually affect most of these aspects of the cake. Icing will affect the cost of the cake and the flavor of the cake. This highlights the importance of your wedding cake frosting choices. These four aspects to consider will help you to be creative while finding the best look and flavor for your cake.

Use Fondant

Fondant has been on the wedding cake market for some time. Many use Fondant for their cakes to give them a clean and modern look. Fondant may be perfect for your wedding cake. The fondant icing is edible, and will give your cake the elegant look and feel that it needs.

Flavor the Icing

One thing that you may want to consider with your icing is the flavor. Most will stick with the usual flavors found in icings. These flavors are well known, and are found in basic icings such as buttercream icing or royal icing. If you want to try something new, flavor these icings with new or unusual frostings. Some will use extracts, such as almond extract or lemon extract, to give the frosting more flavor.

Use Interesting Colors

Many will stick with the basic white color for the frosting for their wedding cakes. One of the easiest ways to be creative with wedding cakes is to deviate from this tradition. Try colored frosting or colored fondant to give your cake a more unique feel.

Play With the Cake Type

Wedding cakes generally stick with plain flavors to ensure that all of their guests can find a flavor that they enjoy. One of the best ways to have a unique cake is to play with the type of cake that you have for your wedding cake. Try different flavors for different cake tiers. Try new and interesting flavors that you may not usually consider. Then, play with the frosting flavors. Use the frosting flavor to play off of the cake flavor. This juxtaposition will give your wedding cake a unique taste.

There are multiple options for you to choose from for the icing for your wedding cake . Most will go with the usual buttercream icing or royal icing. Many fail to realize that they can spice up these usual frostings with flavors and colors. The theme and colors of your wedding may be a perfect guide for you to tweak and change your frosting.

Take a risk with your wedding cake by making it stand out. By breaking the norms and thinking out of the box, you can have an interesting and memorable wedding cake.

Online ecommerce is growing rapidly, and with that is the growing opportunity for fraud and scams. As Internet users, it is our responsibility to take some precautions that will make our online transactions safer.

One area we need to take responsibility for is protecting our online payment information. Online payment providers have come and gone, but one of them, Paypal, has been around for a while and has become the target of scammers. While this may be alarming, there are actually some very simple steps you can take to keep your Paypal account safe from scammers.

1. Never Click on Any of the Links Listed in a ‚Paypal‘ Email

No matter how official the email you get from Paypal looks, never click on any of the links in the email. Instead of clicking on the links, open up a browser window, and type in paypal.com to go directly to their site from you browser. As a rule of thumb, only log into the paypal site if you type in the address into the address bar of the browser yourself.

If you get an email that seems official, but looks suspicious, then forward the email to spoof(at)paypal.com where they will be able to tell you if it was a valid email from them or not. To avoid confusion, Paypal will usually never send you an email telling you to log into their site from a link in their email.

2. How to Tell if the Email is Legitimate

If you get an email from Paypal telling you that your account has closed or some other urgent matter, there are things you can look at that will give you a good idea if the email is legitimate or not.

The way to do this is to select the menu selection in your mail program that allows you to look at the source code for the email. Locate the link (just search the page for the link text that sends you to Paypal of the link and you should find the link).

The link should look something like the following:

< a href=’http: // {urladdress}‘> {link text you just searched for}< / a >

here is an example format of a spoofed link..

http:// ipox.xx.com.my/xxxxxx/paypal.com/xxxxx

Notice that the domain name is actually ‚ipox.xx.com.my‘. You can see a paypal.com in the line, but that is actually the name of a directory in ‚ipox.xx.com.my‘. If you click the link in the email, your browser will actually go to ‚ipox.xx.com.my‘, which will be a very official looking Paypal page, but will not have any association with Paypal whatsoever. Users will think that they are at paypal because they see a paypal.com in the URL in their address bar, and they see the Paypal login page, but they couldn’t be more wrong!

These poor unsuspecting users will type in their username and password and will get a message such as the site is down for maintenance or some other fake message about why they can’t see their account information. At this point it is too late. They have given a phisher (scammer) their real username and password.

3. What Do Some of the Spam Messages Look Like?

These artificial phishing (scamming) messages come in many forms. One form is the typical ‚Your account is going to be deleted if you don’t log in right away‘. Another message looks something like, ‚We have seen unusual activity on your account and it has been suspended‘. Yet another message, and this style seems to be newer, is „Receipt of your payment to SOMECOMPANYNAME“.

If you will notice that all of these messages get to the heart of human behavioral responses and put us immediately into an emotional state where we are less likely to use are intellect and just immediately react to the message. If we imprint tip #1 into our brains, which is never click on any of the links in an email that looks like it comes from Paypal, we can help to overcome this reaction whenever these or other messages appear.

4. What to Do If You Entered Your Paypal Account Information into One of These Phishing Sites.

If you got caught up in the emotion and entered your Paypal information before you realized it was a fake scam site, you should immediately go to Paypal.com, log in and change your password. You should also monitor your account for any unauthorized activity. Should you see any activity, immediately fill out the ‚unauthorized activity form‘ found in the ‚Protection Policies‘ section of the help center on the website.

If you are really feeling vulnerable, call the support desk and immediately report the incident to a support specialist.

We can make our online Paypal transactions safer by using the tips listed. While there are certainly many exceptions, many of these online fraud situations occur from mistakes on the part of the user, and not the payment processing company, or merchant. Online safety 101 should be a mandatory class for anyone entering the Internet world today, however using a good dose of common sense will take you quite far.

The unique power of promotional products is the ability to place targeted marketing messages in front of people during their everyday lives in a manner which produces less waste than traditional marketing methods, but keeps the messages top of mind with prospects.

A broad definition of a promotional item is as follows: any useful item which contains branding (like a logo, marketing message or contact information). The meanings of ‘useful’ and ‘branding’ have been stretched and expanded over the years, but the idea remains relatively simple.

For example, Google typically gives out tech-y items which are not necessarily related directly to their business. Some examples include: a mini-fridge, a lava-lamp, or a digital picture frame. These items are intended less for direct-response generation, and more to enforce their brand as a chic, retro-cool organization.

There are four attributes that your promotional products must possess in order to be successful:

Your promotional gifts must have four specific attributes to be successful:

1. They must feature an effective marketing message:
The call to action is one of the most overlooked attributes of a promotional product.

2. Audiences must be carefully selected for targeting and qualification:
Businesses just can’t afford to market to everyone. The goal is to get your promotional gifts into the hands of trusted and prominent industry personas.

3. Promotional items must be audience-appropriate:
The best case scenario of a mismatched product is no response, and the worst is negative PR! Imagine sending a sausage and cheese gift basket to a vegan group…

4. Timing is everything:
Even if your product, message and audience selection are perfect, it all falls apart with improper timing. The only difference between a grandfather clock and a log is timing!

Partnering with a person or firm who is experienced in the world of promotional products is a great shortcut to making sure these four objectives are fulfilled. Experience is the key to producing a well-timed, targeted, appropriate and effective promotional gift.

Going to a store to buy a gift for dad this Father’s Day may be the easy route to take. However, you should take a look at these terrific gifts to make for Father’s Day so that it is personalized and so dad feels super special:

A Father’s Survival Kit – Take a box of any size. Cover the box with dad’s favorite color construction paper. Decorate the box in any way you want, with crayons, stickers, glitter glue, markers, stamps…it is up to you how you want to decorate the box! Once the box is decorated, you can keep it looking nice by covering it with clear contact paper. Now, fill it with everything dad needs to survive: A picture of the family, a band-aid, a mini screwdriver, a bag of mini Oreo cookies, a video or DVD telling him how much he means to you…what you include is limited only by your imagination. You can make the survival kit out of any kind of plastic container, as well. Use puffy paints and glitter glue to decorate.

Special Father’s Day T-Shirt – On the computer, create a picture all your own. Include “Happy Father’s Day Dad” and pictures of his favorite hobbies, like golf, baseball, grilling, fishing, boating, etc. (All these can be found on free clip art sites online.) Print out your creation on special iron-on paper found at your local discount store (in the craft area). Now, iron-on your creation to a special shirt just for dad!

One of a kind paperweight – Find a big rock or shell. With paints and glitter, write “Happy Father’s Day Dad” on the item and then decorate as you want. This will make a great paperweight for dad’s desk, either at home or at work.

Don’t forget Father’s Day coupons – Create your own coupons, or find templates online, for coupons for dad. Offer anything you like: one “mowing the lawn” coupon, one “breakfast in bed” coupon, one “empty the dishwasher” coupon, one “do your laundry” coupon. Great Father’s Day gift for teens!

Anything you give dad for Father’s Day is special, but when you personalize the holiday with terrific gifts to make for Father’s Day it can be even more special.

As a San Francisco based artist and creator of beautiful things, I strive to design the details of my life so that my experience of beauty is enhanced to the maximum. It’s what I call Artful Living. One of my inspirations is beautiful fabric. What’s yours?

My business is sewing for custom interiors and I get great pleasure from working with exquisite fabrics. Flowing silks, crisp linens and the bright flowers of a waxy cotton chintz are a delight to the senses. My featured fabric from the house of Fortuny is one of my favorites.

What I love about my work is collaborating closely with clients to create the houses they want to live in and feel great about. Making everything from bedding, window treatments and pillows, I create something exquisite every day. I have extended the rich sensual experience of my work into my philosophy of Artful Living.

Artful Living can encompass the materials, the texture, the color and the form of the everyday items with which you surround yourself. Life is a feast and you can take every opportunity to enjoy it’s pleasures by enriching your daily experience with beauty. Live Artfully by:

Have Your Special Signature Piece – Take an everyday item like your handbag, your tote or a scarf and make it your special signature piece. A unique expression reflective of you! For instance, one day in a great hurry, Babe Paley socialite and trend setter in the 50’s and 60’s, tied her Hermes scarf to the handle of her handbag thereby creating a fashion craze. Everyone who was anyone immediately did the same.

Uplift and Enrich Yourself in Small Details – It isn’t what you possess but how you make the most of it by presenting and arranging it. Consciously design your life as an antidote to the pervasive stress of the 21st century. Choose the details of your surroundings to uplift and enrich your life. Perhaps it is something that was made especially for you, or something that reminds you of a joyful time. Whenever I look at the small Florentine paper picture frame which sits on my bookcase, I am instantly transported to that magical shop under the Ponte Vecchio and the soft, warm light of a spring evening. What small item takes you to a favorite corner of the world?

Be Environmentally Friendly – Your artifacts can be fashioned from salvaged, recycled, reused or renewable materials. You might think that this does not sound sexy but you can have beauty and be kind to the planet at the same time. I reuse vintage Japanese kimonos to make beautiful pillows and totes. My clients love them because they are extremely limited pieces, made especially for them from high-quality fabrics with prints that are no longer loomed. It’s a real thrill to have your own custom pillow, tote or accessory in a fabric that will never be made again.

Be a Pebble in the Pond – As the ripples spread out from one small pebble dropped into a pond, you can give others the gift of Artful Living by simply embodying it yourself. Others will perceive and enjoy your increased sense of vivaciousness as you unselfconsciously go about sporting your signature piece. Just think of how good you feel when someone compliments you on your good taste and style. You can also artfully maintain the details of your work environment. I often benefit with improved mood and vitality by keeping a fresh cut flower (a red, orange or yellow Gerber Daisy is my favorite) in a small elegant Japanese ceramic vase. I keep it next to my computer and a couple of times a day or so, the color and fragrance affords me a wonderful contemplative get-away into beauty. It lets me refocus on my work with a renewed sense of vigor. You can experience the same benefits with your own personal artful design. By expressing the radiance that is your true nature, you will enhance your own life and the lives of others in surprising ways!
Get ready for an abundance of fresh ideas, energy and new beautiful items to enhance your living!

Shirley Anderson

As more and more Internet users are coming online to generate passive income, they start to look into websites that could help them to create passive streams of income either through commissions, user clicks or page impressions. Internet Entrepreneurs are now starting to build or acquire potential sites and flip them over to the buyers for a nice profit.

Although traffic is the key area when most people are considering when buying a website, other criteria are also important for the site to run and stay profitable in a long run. This article will help you to sell your site if you do not have much traffic flow.

The first technique is to mention how easy it is to maintain and run the site after the ownership transfer. An ideal site would be able to update its content automatically and using unique and fresh content. Some Webmasters use RSS feeds to dynamically load their sites with fresh content so that search engine will index their sites more often. Most buyers will be more than happy to buy a site that does not require them to write content and maintain. It is highly advisable not to have a site that contains 100% RSS feeds as this will not yield good results in the search engine rankings.

Another useful technique is to stress on the earning capabilities of your site. All website buyers are looking for an easy way to generate passive streams of income. For example, I normally incorporate Google Adsense, ClickBank and Amazon products review in my site and make sure that the new owner can easily change the affiliate id respectively. This is a very effective method that most buyers do not mind paying for.

The third technique is the ease of transfer. Most website buyers are not technically trained and hence, some may not even know how to install a database on a web server. It is always easy to sell a site that does not require a database and the buyer will appreciate it as they may resell these sites in future as well. If the site you are selling includes database operations, you may need to provide support after the deal to make sure that everything runs smoothly.

The last technique will assure the buyers that your site will proof worthy after the deal. This require you to have one or two profit generating sites with the same model of the sites that you are selling. When selling your new sites, quote the examples that you are now generating passive income from your old sites and show proof when necessary.

The above techniques are extremely powerful especially when you combine them with excellent sales pitch.

Everything changes when you trade in your desktop for a laptop and your office for a hotel room.

Sometimes this is for the better: You’re liberated from your cubicle and free to go where your work takes you.

But sometimes things change for the worse. Productivity suffers when you’re in an unfamiliar place. The way a laptop keyboard cramps your hands is sometimes enough to keep you from getting the job done right.

Here are four technology „must-haves“ for the mobile office, plus some tools that can boost your productivity while you’re away.

• The Right Software

It isn’t just downloading the necessary applications onto your laptop or PDA, it’s also knowing whether the programs are suited to a mobile office. Is your email program built for the road or adapted from a bigger application meant for a corporate network? Do the programs work together on your laptop or do they freeze when your processor gets busy?

These considerations can become big issues when you’re travelling. That’s something Tab Stone, a doctor from Los Angeles, knows all too well. He installed a new email program on his laptop before leaving on a recent trip, but it wasn’t suited for mobile use. He had to uninstall it shortly before takeoff, but that disabled his backup email program. That meant he couldn’t download any messages to his PC. „I could not fix whatever was corrupted with either a fresh download or a copy downloaded from the internet,“ Stone recalls.

The latest: Contact-management software programs let you integrate data with your PDA, so you can download and synchronise contacts, calendar appointments and notes to your Palm Pilot or Pocket PC. There’s also a web-based version for travellers who either lose their laptops or prefer to work from a desktop at their destination.

What’s next? Look for more integration between applications for wireless users. Contact managers are already assuming the role of email program, address book and database. The next step is making it more accessible to people who are using cell phones or PDAs.

• The Right Hardware

I’m not talking about owning the newest laptop computer. I’m talking about hardware that’s created for life on the road. Let’s face it: A lot of the gadgets on which mobile professionals depend aren’t made with travellers in mind. For example, when Joachim Martin’s laptop battery ran out on a recent flight, a helpful flight attendant offered to recharge it in a „secret“ outlet in the back of the plane. „The batteries charged,“ remembers the software developer. „But when I got home, they were dead.“ The power source had to be replaced. Blame the airline, the battery manufacturer or even the unfortunate business traveller for not knowing better, but this kind of thing happens often. Phone plugs don’t always fit; neither do power outlets. And a lot of the gadgets we rely on are traveller-hostile, impractical or both.

The latest: Some hardware manufacturers are meeting the demand for traveller-friendly hardware with add-ons such as the Stowaway XT Keyboard. I’ve also been impressed with Microsoft’s Mini Optical Mouse, which frees you from the restrictions of your laptop’s finger-cramping pointer.

What’s next? As the convergence between cell phones, PCs and PDAs continues, it wouldn’t surprise me to see devices that offer the ergonomic comfort of a desktop with the portability of a PDA. It won’t come a moment too soon for many road warriors.

• The Right Connections

Connections are everything to the mobile office.

Remember Stone, the doctor without email? He eventually accessed his messages through an unwieldy web connection. Spencer Field, who recently returned from a trip to Melbourne, can also tell you about email trouble. He learned upon arrival that the dial-up numbers to his internet service provider (ISP) didn’t work. „I thought that was probably the end of my online access,“ he says. „As a last-ditch effort, I let my fingers do the walking and checked out the Melbourne Yellow Pages for a local ISP.“ He found one and signed up for a one-month email account which gave him access to local numbers on his entire itinerary.

It isn’t just internet connections that matter, but also hooking up to other devices such as cell phones, PDAs and laptops. Technologies such as Bluetooth let you communicate with other devices in an office or hotel room without the need for cables.

The latest: According to a recent AT&T study, the top barrier to working from a remote location is access to a high-speed data connection. Fast wireless networks are springing up everywhere — in hotels, airport lounges and coffee shops. And even though Bluetooth got off to a slow start, the concept behind it — which is to lose the wires — is fundamentally sound.

What’s next? It won’t be long before Wi-Fi is as ubiquitous as cellular coverage and a majority of devices are Bluetooth-enabled. That’s good news for those of us who work in a mobile office.

• The Right Web Applications

Web-based applications are so important to the mobile office that I’ve decided to give them their own category, even though they technically belong in the „software“ section. The web is one of the most efficient ways for a mobile worker to gain access to a back-office system, intranet or database.

My ISP offers a rudimentary application that lets me check my email from the web. I can’t remember how often I’ve had to use it because my email program failed to work properly. But I do remember the last time. I was stuck at a meeting out-of-town and my email account had sustained a spam attack — thousands of unsolicited messages — that would have taken hours to download. Instead, I logged on to the web and deleted them all in seconds. Were it not for the web application, I would probably still be downloading the spam.

The latest: One of the most innovative Web applications is GoToMyPC , which lets you access the desktop in your home or office through the web. Another useful application for mobile users is web conferencing services such as Microsoft Office LiveMeeting.

What’s next? Expect these applications to become cheaper, more reliable and even more sophisticated.

Be honest with yourself. Are you one of those people that believe that you just don’t have the time to get your home business up and running? You’re not alone. Many people I talk to claim they have too much to do and not enough time to do it. They wind up defeating themselves and their business looses momentum and suffers.

Full time jobs, family obligations, maintaining health and too many other distractions are the main reasons for not building momentum for their business. You can wind up feeling that your life is spent catering to every one else’s obligations.

However, I have some good news! You can find and maximize time to build momentum for your home business. All you need is to find time and commit to use that time for your home business only. Try the following strategies to make your home based business flourish.

Document Your Daily Routine

The first thing you will need to do find a quiet place and write down your schedule. Document the start and end time on events like getting ready for work, driving your kids to school, your commute to your day job, gym time and any other weekly commitments you have. Don’t forget to include weekends and family time (this is most important).

After completing this exercise you should have a good visual of what your work week looks like. You should see openings in your week. Make your goal easy: try to find two hours you can commit to spend on your business. You should be able to re-prioritize some time.

Stay with the Schedule You Created and Re-Evaluate

The next thing you need to do is stick with your schedule. This can be tough because you are creating a new habit. Once you get the hang of your new routine, you should always re-evaluate your schedule. You may be able to find more time to spend on your home business.

Sticking with your schedule means you need to discipline yourself to work. This means that you have to find a way after work, after little league games, after dinner and after putting the kids to bed.

Don’t Forget Your Family.

Spending time with my family is always a top priority for me. I have young children so I try to focus on the business when my kids are in bed. I find that using the evening hours is best for me to spend on my home business. It seems to be the most quite part of the day.

If you have to use your family time to spend on your business, make sure you communicate with your family so they have an expectation of what you are doing. However, I would recommend that you set a time limit so you can spend that time you want with your family. This will provide balance for you.

Embrace Distractions

As we all know life also throws us off schedule. Try your best to embrace that fact instead of fighting it. If your child stays up late, focus on helping your child quiet down and go to sleep. Try not to focus on what you could be doing. Don’t worry. The work will still be there when you are ready.

If you have to stay late at your day job, then choose to work late. Usually, you’ll find that it is better just to focus on one thing at a time. You’ll be more efficient and effective. Having a clear and guilt free mind while working on your business is most productive.

To handle new ideas that can distract you while you are working, keep an MP3 Recorder handy so if an idea comes up you can record it or write down the idea in a notebook. You can always prioritize those thoughts at a later time. You will also find that you are using less energy dealing with distractions instead of fighting them.

So there is good news when it comes to finding time to work on your own business. Don’t despair and don’t get frustrated. Just remember that you have total control of your time and you alone can change your habits to build your businesses momentum.